155 replies to this topic

[davoodoo]

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Hellstar
this is hellstar, only reason this mech even exists is to pepper enemy with heat neutral erppc fire.

"Among the most deadly weapons in the Clan arsenal, the Hellstar's four Ripper Series A1 Extended Range Particle Projector Cannons, one in each arm and torso, give it the potential to destroy or cripple anything less than another assault 'Mech with a single salvo. While lacking in secondary weapons, the massive volume of heat sinks ensures that barring combat damage the Hellstar can fire its main weapons as fast as they can recharge."

If you say that you shouldnt carry firepower to oneshot enemy mech then youre doing battletech wrong.

Battlemechs are walking tanks, they dont stand in the open and chainfire lasers, they emerge from cover, unload everything they can before returning back to safety before return fire arrives. This is basic principle behind combat and the fact that so many ppl naturally gravitate towards alphas and careful poking should give you some idea on how the game is supposed to function.


Also what you propose now is just nerf to ballistics. Only reason to use them is to have sustained fire on enemy and by removing that youre simply making them into inferior ppcs.

Edited by davoodoo, 05 July 2017 - 09:15 AM.

[Twinkleblade]

MustrumRidcully, on 05 July 2017 - 07:47 AM, said:

I don't know. I theoretically like the "flavour" behind Energy Draw, but in practice, that flavour cannot really be retained. No one could tell me that autocannons would draw any noteworthy amount of power compared to that of a laser, for example.

And then it's just another system on top of the existing systems. Just as Ghost Heat, except it even invents a new resource to consider when building a mech.

I think the energy boating could have been curtailed by a lower heat capacity and a higher dissipation. Alpha Strike boats produce a lot of heat at once, a low heat cap would limit the effectiveness (especially in the typical sniper and trading situations where you don't want to fall asleep while out of cover). A high dissipation ensures you still can field multiple weapons, but you must chain-fire them.

Autocannons could follow the Clan Auto-cannon model where you shoot multiple bullets in short succession. Maybe combine with a a bit of recoil effect, and they aren't pinpoint precise, especially not when group-fired.

The only remaining item I'd be concerned about are Gauss Rifles. For those, I could see that a Gauss Rifle needs the mech to have not fired the last 0.25 before it can be fired, and no weapon being fireable 0.25 seconds after the GR has been fired.

Since missiles spread a lot, I don't really see a strong reason to do something like ghost heat. But if necessary, one could increase their spread when group-fired (e.g. multiple launchers are engaged within a short, say 0.25 to 0.5 time frame).

Thats why in my opinion we need a partial return of ED. ED for energy weapons, refire penalty for ballistics and spread penalty for missiles.
I put a more detailed idea of it here
https://mwomercs.com...ove-ghost-heat/

However it turned into a pure ED discussion again. Just read my ideas about the other 2 weapon systems.

[Gas Guzzler]

Let me reiterate:

No.

[Tim East]

Twinkleblade, on 05 July 2017 - 02:58 AM, said:

Point is that PGI was planning on making it ED more clear in mechlab. GH never tells you how much of a penatly it gives you. You cant fire more then x amount of weapons is all that you see in the mechlab no precise numbers. GH is clarity at its finest (<<<sarcasm if you dont get it).

On the subject of GH clarity, anyone remember its initial implementation? xD

[kapusta11]

Tim East, on 05 July 2017 - 11:21 AM, said:

On the subject of GH clarity, anyone remember its initial implementation? xD

Yeah, I remember it barely had any effect on LPL/LL Battlemaster so PGI had to make IS lasers worthless.

[Captain Grayson Lighthorse]

I say get rid of ghost heat all together and no energy draw system. If a player has the ability to build a load out that he can fire continuously without overheating then they should get to use it without artificial penalties! There should be 'Mechs on the field that are FEARED! There are 'Mechs that are better than others as they are designed that way. Light 'Mechs should fear assaults, not go trolling the field looking for an easy kill.

This is what I would like to see... (although I know it won't happen)...
1> Get rid of ghost heat
2> Set the armor values of the Locust on the low end of a scale and the values of the VIP 'Mech on the upper end of the scale and draw a linear line between the two.
3> Place all other 'Mechs on the scale between the two and set their armor values up to meet that line.
4> Allow double heat sinks to dissipate double heat like they are supposed to do.

This would allow setting the weapon damage values where they should be, allow longer, more fun matches, give heavy and assault 'Mechs enough armor to fend off light 'Mech onslaughts, and give slower moving 'Mechs a better chance to recover from blundering into a group of the enemy 'Mechs.

All of this controversy over ghost heat, energy draw, and any other form of weapon and 'Mech neutering is just not needed in a video game version of MechWarrior.

To be honest, I don't really think PGI understands what "balance" means. All of the things they did in the last 2 or 3 updates did nothing but "take away" from the effectiveness of the weapons and 'Mechs. Most of it was a kind of "bait-and-switch" routine where they promise us improvements, but these "improvements" are based on the "less is more" mentality. They take away something effective and give us something much less effective in return. This is not how you please a customer PGI...

The game would be much more fun to me if they would STOP with the "balancing" act, do something like I described above, and put their design efforts into improving the matchmaking engine, like dropping 2 Clan Stars vs 3 IS Lances, battle scenarios, more maps, etc... I'm sure this won't happen but it's something to wish for...

[FunkyT]

Clan Stars and IS Lances works exactly for Faction Warefare. But what do you do with quickplay, where nobody is restricted to factions and there is no set balance between the number of IS and Clan mechs queueing up?

Also you might miss the point that balancing sometimes means, that you have to take away from those that have too much. If there is no realistic way for IS mechs to return laser fire against Clan mechs, maybe Clan lasers are a bit overtuned. And it's not really fun to be on the recieving end of laser vomit way beyond your range, with no way to fight back.

This may not be according to lore, but this isn't "Battletech Lore Simulator", this is a game that is supposed to be fun. You will have to deviate from the source material in order to create a balance and fun experience for all sides. While nerfing Clan lasers (like they did in the last patch) is probably not fun for Clan mechs, it's something they probably saw necessary in order to preserve balance between the 2 tech bases.

And I don't know about your idea of making light mechs terribly squishy and turn assault mechs into walking fortresses. Why would you give those, that already pack the most firepower, even more survivability? A 100 ton assault mech isn't supposed to be a raid boss that requires an entire 12 player team to take down. Again, maybe that's what an Atlas for example is in lore, but this wouldn't make sense for a game like MWO.
And taking away from light mech survivability and giving to assaults would probably not make the light pilots very happy.

[Captain Grayson Lighthorse]

FunkyT, on 06 July 2017 - 08:28 AM, said:

Clan Stars and IS Lances works exactly for Faction Warefare. But what do you do with quickplay, where nobody is restricted to factions and there is no set balance between the number of IS and Clan mechs queueing up?

Also you might miss the point that balancing sometimes means, that you have to take away from those that have too much. If there is no realistic way for IS mechs to return laser fire against Clan mechs, maybe Clan lasers are a bit overtuned. And it's not really fun to be on the recieving end of laser vomit way beyond your range, with no way to fight back.

This may not be according to lore, but this isn't "Battletech Lore Simulator", this is a game that is supposed to be fun. You will have to deviate from the source material in order to create a balance and fun experience for all sides. While nerfing Clan lasers (like they did in the last patch) is probably not fun for Clan mechs, it's something they probably saw necessary in order to preserve balance between the 2 tech bases.

And I don't know about your idea of making light mechs terribly squishy and turn assault mechs into walking fortresses. Why would you give those, that already pack the most firepower, even more survivability? A 100 ton assault mech isn't supposed to be a raid boss that requires an entire 12 player team to take down. Again, maybe that's what an Atlas for example is in lore, but this wouldn't make sense for a game like MWO.
And taking away from light mech survivability and giving to assaults would probably not make the light pilots very happy.

I think you might have incorrectly interpreted some of the things that I was talking about. Let me explain in a little more detail.

What you do with quickplay is what I was talking about with "put their design efforts into improving the matchmaking engine". They set the engine so the same IS vs Clan drops are made. i.e.. Have it so you can select to play Clan vs IS or select to play in mixed company. When you play mixed company, the matchmaking engine sets an equal number of Clan 'Mechs on both teams. When Clan vs IS, it drops 2 Clan Stars vs 3 IS Lances.

The matchmaking engine is pretty much broken now as I've been in matches with only 4 lightweight assaults on my team (Victor, Zeus, Highlander, Mauler) and up to 6 100 ton assaults on the enemy team (2 Kodiaks, 2 Atlases, 1 Dire Wolf, and 1 King Crab). This is in no way a "fair" match, so, yes, the matchmaking engine is in need of serious efforts to improve it. This is an area where you "begin" the balancing.

I know what "balancing" means in its pure form. However, PGI's interpretation is to just "take away". You can argue that they usually show that they are giving us something in return, but, in reality, in each of the patches the things they take away FAR exceed what they give back. Here are some examples:

The clan small pulse laser "big" nerf from 6 damage to 4 damage. This was a take away, a big one! My Viper lost nearly 10 points of damage output with this nerf alone. This was around 18 to 20 percent taken away. I spent a lot of time in the mechlab and testing grounds fine tuning the loadout I had in this 'Mech and they come along and just wipe it out! And this has happened more than once or twice.

Oh, yes, they gave us back... oh I think it was somewhere around a 0.11/second duration reduction and maybe a 0.2 heat reduction in some laser(s). Sorry, but this does not make up for the 18 to 20 percent damage reduction that they took out of my 'Mech. And this was typical across the board of what they "took away" was far greater than what they gave back. There was nowhere in game play that said this was necessary; NOWHERE! And 1/tenth of a second of laser duration??? Really??? This is not an improvement, it's and insult to my and everyone elses intelligence. I challenge anyone to be able to detect a 1/tenth of a second reduction in laser duration in game!

The "improvements" they offered in the last patch was done only to make it "look" like they were giving us some thing in return for all that they were taking away. What they gave was meaningless in real gameplay. The difference in those tiny values can only be seen with their statistical tracking software that monitors the game engine.

Was my Viper out there destroying everything in its path? NO, not by a long shot. I had to battle heavily against any foe I went up against and sometimes win, sometimes lose. Now I lose much more often, and all because "someone" thinks something is OP and wants to micro manage it into the ground to make it just as useless as everything else. Clan small pulse lasers were NOT the terror weapon of the battlefield by a LONG shot.

PGI did not reduce their power because they were OP, they reduced their power because one of the new weapons was going to take its power slot of 6 damage and they didn't want two weapons at the same power level. It had nothing to do with CSPL being OP, because they weren't. What they gave back in the last two or three patches does not even come close to what they took away from our weapons and 'Mechs.

And yet others...
Large Pulse Lasers had a damage reduction. Again, where's is the "in-game" evidence. Again, take away...
Missiles got a spread increase to make them less effective. Again, take away...
Targeting computers effectiveness was reduced pretty much across the board. Again, take away...
I could go on with the list but it's just pointless... I think you are intelligent and can grasp what I'm saying. And they think that any of this can be made up for with the Skill Tree? Uh, no, it can't. Not even close.

As far as the BattleTech Lore is concerned, I'm all for deviating from it to make the game fun. Actually that is exactly what I am talking about doing here! That's what I want them to do. However, I say, do NOT start with "nerfing" the weapons and 'Mechs. Start with putting efforts into balancing the game by making better maps that will "partially limit" the effectiveness of certain weapons systems or 'Mechs; improve the matchmaking engine; build battle scenarios that promote tactical battle decisions by each team in order to be successful. I believe that this is where the balancing efforts should go FIRST, not just doing repeated nerfing of the weapons systems and 'Mechs to make them ALL less effective.

Now your last statement about my "idea of making light mechs terribly squishy" is totally wrong. I never said anything about taking anything AWAY from light 'Mechs. Perhaps my wording could have been interpreted that way but that is NOT what I meant to do. I pilot every size of 'Mech in the game, from lights to assaults. Let me make one statement VERY clear... I DON'T WANT TO TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM ANY 'MECH OR WEAPON, PERIOD! What I am talking about is "giving" the other 3 weight classes the same 2x to 3x armor increases that has been given to the light 'Mechs that buffed them and made the light 'Mechs more playable. THIS IS BALANCE!!! Across the board BALANCE!

I want my Atlas, Victor, and Mauler to be able to sustain firepower like an Urbie!! Now, do I want to turn 100 ton assaults into fortresses? YEEESSS! Every 100 ton assault 'Mech should be every bit as tough as the VIP 'Mech. The other assaults/heavies/mediums should scale down from there as far as toughness is concerned. Right now they die way to quickly. The Atlas is probably the strongest, but even as it is, it's NOT a tough 'Mech! Not nearly as tough as it should be. Would this make for some tough 'Mechs?... YES! Would the "un-nerfed/un-neutered" weapons systems be able to deal with it?... YES! Would long brawling matches become common place?... YES! Would players finally be able to get over their 'chicken-hiding behind-cover-with-their-knees-knocking-fear-of-getting-instantly-destroyed-if-they-poke-their-head-out?... YES!!!

What I meant with my light vs assault comparison is that NO light 'Mech should feel the least bit motivated to go tackle a 100 ton assault 'Mech... EVER! They should FEAR them like nobodies business, same as other 'Mechs. The armor value increases that I am talking about would totally place every 'Mech's weigh class into "proper BALANCE". NO light 'Mech should be able to get away with attacking a 100 ton assault 'Mech unless the assault was HEAVILY damaged already. This is the real balance as balance is supposed to be. All of the 100 ton assault 'Mechs are way too squishy. The Kodiak is terrible and the Dire Wolf is not much better. The King Crab is pretty easy to take down also. The Atlas is the strongest but is really not nearly as strong as it should be.

Would what I say here give a 100 ton assault 'Mech the ability to wade into 12 enemy 'Mechs and survive? NO WAY! It would only last a few seconds as would any other 'Mech. But I do strongly believe that any 100 ton assault 'Mech should be able to encounter any 2 enemy heavy 'Mechs or below and have a good to great chance of defeating BOTH if piloted correctly. But I do think that 4 light 'Mechs SHOULD be able to take down a 100 ton assault 'Mech if they can stay alive long enough to get the job done. That is the key here. There is a consequence for them taking on a 100 ton assault, not just a freebe kill.

If the armor values I state above were applied to all 'Mechs in all weight classes then this would be the case. It would do real "balance" in the game without neutering our weapons and 'Mechs. And, the game would be a hell of a lot more fun for everyone. Light 'Mechs would still have the same toughness they have now, but all of the other 'Mechs would be raised up to where they should be relative to the armor buffs that the lights have received. This to me is just logical.

I challenge PGI to do this and put it up on a PTS and let players have at it for 30 days. I would be willing to bet real money that the players would want this in the game after experiencing it real time.

Doing this would allow us to get rid of ghost heat and let double heat sinks run at full 2x dissipation, and the Energy Draw would not be needed. Weapons could also run at full power/capacity.

This would work but I know it won't be done. PGI is too engrossed into micro managing every weapon system and 'Mech to allow something so simple and effective to become real. They are wasting their efforts with all of this constant nerfing. They need to throw that statistical modeling software they have out with the bath water and focus more on things listed here and elsewhere to make the game more fun and get rid of all of the micro managing/neutering/taking away crap.

[FunkyT]

Some of sentiments sound reasonable, but I honestly think that most of it doesn't really work in this game.

Dividing quickplay into what we have now and into mini-FW sounds like a neat idea, but I honestly think the community is just too small. Does anyone actually have the numbers? I think MWO has a couple thousand players, spread all over the world and over the three server locations (europe / north america / oceanic) and with time differences and all, it can already be tricky to get a match in a reasonable time. So splitting up this already small community even further doesn't sound very good.
And with this in mind, I don't actually think matchmaking is broken. It's probably/maybe just that there isn't enough players queueing up to perfectly balance out pilot ratings and weight on both teams. So the matchmaking probably widens it's criteria to fill the match.
Queueing solo still seems to work kinda decently, at least from the waiting time. But group queues can be a pain to wait for, from my experience.
I'm all for better matchmaking, especially since I sometimes feel like being matches with Tier 5 newcomers on my team, who still don't know how the game works and play it like Call of Duty, thinking they can win alone. But I don't think MWO has the population for that.


The laser nerfs were harsh, even as someone who has no mechs with small lasers. And I think the problems came less from vipers and arctic cheeters, but from things like the nova, executioner and gargoyle who could just excessively boat these things.
If I'm not mistaken, the most common nova build was 12x ER small lasers for a total of 72 alpha strike? That seems a bit much for a 40 (45?) ton medium, don't you think? If a very mobile medium mech with jump jets can just come out of nowhere and strip my assault mechs front armor in a drive-by maneuver, the whole idea of tanky frontliners goes to waste in my view. And I think the 6x ER small arctic cheetah also had way more firepower than anything on IS side in that tonnage bracket. Plus, those smalls had a decent cycle time, making for respectable DPS.
So the nerf may (or may not) have been directed to these builds, with the rest of the Clan lights and mediums being caught in the crossfire. I don't know, that's at least how I see it.


And your idea with making assaults terribly tanky again sounds interesting. As a mostly assault pilot, I would like not having to fear a single locust approaching me.
But with the way you describe your idea, this would just make perfect matchmaking so much more important than it already is. To have fair team compositions, you would basically need to make tonnage-perfect matches on both sides, which again probably doesn't work very consistently with our low population. And this whole "everyone against the assaults" scenario you're drawing may sound fun, but I'm not sure it really makes sense in this game.

Plus, enabling unlimited alphastrikes still seems like a poor idea. Yes, people would be afraid of assault mechs. But that would also punish light and medium pilots, who would need to fear for their lifes everytime an assault just looks in their general direction. Deleting mechs with one button press may be fun, but being deleted certainly isn't.

Edited by FunkyT, 07 July 2017 - 02:22 AM.

[Wildstreak]

Snowbluff, on 02 July 2017 - 07:12 AM, said:

I understand that people had issues with a DPS game, and how it could favor the clans, but doesn't an Alpha centric game currently favor the clans?

No.
Energy Draw was a horrible idea due to its complexity.

[Y E O N N E]

Wildstreak, on 07 July 2017 - 03:01 AM, said:

No.
Energy Draw was a horrible idea due to its complexity.

It was horrible due to its oversimplification of a complex system.

[Twinkleblade]

Gas Guzzler, on 05 July 2017 - 10:25 AM, said:

Let me reiterate:

No.

I till say yes

[Wildstreak]

Yeonne Greene, on 07 July 2017 - 06:34 AM, said:

It was horrible due to its oversimplification of a complex system.

Energy Draw was by no means simple.

[Tim East]

I read all that, and think you have a bit of a problem, Grayson. While I'm not against increasing TTK, which seems to be one of your principal arguments, if you make it so that a competent assault pilot can beat two heavies at once reliably, what is the point of piloting anything but assaults if you want to win? Light queue is already dirt low; you'd never see one again if that was implemented as written. Well, unless they were just being stupid like I like to instead of trying really hard to win that is.

[Khobai]

Quote

Energy Draw was by no means simple.

It was simpler than ghost heat is. Which was the whole point of energy draw. To simplify ghost heat and make it more transparent so people could actually understand it.

[Y E O N N E]

Wildstreak, on 07 July 2017 - 07:30 PM, said:

Energy Draw was by no means simple.

It was, and that was why it didn't work. They had to start tacking on all these modifiers and, when it became apparent that it would need many more, they canned it.

[ManDaisy]

Energy draw done correctly is good. Energy draw done PGIs way was is just another more horrible ghost heat. I like the fact that they did it horribly and said look we tried! People don't like it! (maybe cause it was such a half *** job) Before throwing it out.

I remember on PTS energy draw was just some arbitrary firing delay. No shutdown, no slowdown, no penalties what so ever. It was a can of doo doo. With no teeth of course it didnt achieve its objective. Kind of like we had 6 ppcs stalkers before the forums raged over a series of months for overheat damage before they actually put it in and people started dieing from overheat damage.

Edited by ManDaisy, 08 July 2017 - 05:45 PM.

[Reno Blade]

ManDaisy, on 08 July 2017 - 05:38 PM, said:

Energy draw done correctly is good. Energy draw done PGIs way was is just another more horrible ghost heat. I like the fact that they did it horribly and said look we tried! People don't like it! (maybe cause it was such a half *** job) Before throwing it out.

I remember on PTS energy draw was just some arbitrary firing delay. No shutdown, no slowdown, no penalties what so ever. It was a can of doo doo. With no teeth of course it didnt achieve its objective. Kind of like we had 6 ppcs stalkers before the forums raged over a series of months for overheat damage before they actually put it in and people started dieing from overheat damage.

what are you talking about?
Energy Draw gave you heat penalties when your shots made you go over the 30 limit.
there was no delay that you are talking about and heat is the main penalty.

[ManDaisy]

Strange, maybe my memory is playing tricks on me. Either way it was a more horrible ghost heat 3.0. But I still stand that Energy Draw could be done in more effective logical way.

Edited by ManDaisy, 09 July 2017 - 09:18 AM.

[Reno Blade]

recap of ED from another post:

Reno Blade, on 07 July 2017 - 09:06 AM, said:

I think people just did not want the power nerf so ED was not accepted by more than a handful of PTS testers and everyone else QQed it to death.

recap of Energy draw:
- energy cap 30
- energ reg 20/sec
each point over the 30 would be 1 heat extra

right side of the minimap was the energy bar where you could see the level and speed of the energy

weapon draw value were based on damage first.
weapon precision increased/decreased it by roughly these factors:
- ppfld weapons 1 to 1.2x and gauss even up to 1.5
- beam weapons 0.9 to 1.0
- missiles /lbx because of spread 0.5 to 0.75
- cUACs because of burst 0.9 to 1.0

but because the draw vale was no longer 1:1 to damage, people were saying the system was confusing again.
uac spam was very heat neutral and energy neutral, so dps dakka boat was basically the problem child not really affected by ED.

personally, i was really looking forward to ED and am still dissapointed it got paused indefinitely.

i hope this clears some confusions for now.